president obama met at the white house with key congressional leaders including house speaker john boehner, house democratic leader nancy pelosi, senate majority leader harry reid and a republican mitch mcconnell. the first meeting since the election. they discussed what to do about expiring busheir tax reductions and across-the-board spending cuts set to hit in january called the fiscal cliff. they allowed cameras in the room before the talks. >> i want to welcome the congressional leadership and thank them for their time. we have -- factors don't go on middle class families that our economy remains strong and we are creating jobs and and that's the agenda that democrats and republicans and independents all across the country share so our challenge is to make sure that we are able to capri together and work to find common ground, make compromises and build consensus. all of us agree on this they want to see us focused on that but not our politics here in washington. my hope is this is the beginning of a process where we are able to come to an agreement that will reduce our deficit in a ba